


Accept. Adapt. Act.

by through_a_window



Category: The Darkest Minds Series - Alexandra Bracken
Genre: Gen, Help, TDM OC, how does this site work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2018-12-11 16:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11718597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/through_a_window/pseuds/through_a_window
Summary: My name is Zoe Laurens, and I am a Purple.Aka I couldn't stay in my own damn lane and be a Green or something. I had to find some fancy color of my own. Great. Anyway, I can teleport and even though that looks cool I guess it has cons. Like accidentally vanishing from your parents' car and finding yourself on the other side of the country at age 10. That kind of stuff.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> The note is gonna be bigger than the fic. So first of all, this is my very first fanfic, and English isn't my first language so like, don't be too mean  
> I have no idea of how this site works  
> I don't know how many chapters there's gonna be but I think it's going to be relatively long and it will be tied up with the canon story (it's not a AU or anything, I'll just try to make it have a connection without messing up the canon too much)(esp since Alex is gonna do 3 more books that are probably going to get in the way, but I'll just ignore that for ever)  
> Anyway enjoy, it's pretty slow in the beginning but shit happens later (I mean I don't really know I have written it yet but yknow)(*whispers* but there's gonna be an f/f relationship) And tell me if you want a sequel lmao

My name is Zoe Laurens, and I am a Purple.

My parents freaked out, when the kids started being sent in ‘rehabilitation camps’. For once in my life, I felt lucky to have been born to paranoid, conspiracy-theories-lovers kind of weird parents. They didn’t believe we were going to be cured in there. My neighbours and classmates who weren’t dead were being taken away to God knows where, and mom and dad were certainly not going to let them do the same to me. They never trusted Gray. So we left. We ran away. I was barely ten at the time, and they tried to make it look like some kind of adventure. A fun road trip to get away from the big bad governement. Yay. It was alright at first, I didn’t like moving all the time but sometimes when we couldn’t find decent food, I ate chocolate bars for dinner, which was all a girl could have dreamt of. As a kid, I didn’t need much to be happy. I knew that the situation was serious, my parents weren’t try to hide me the fact that we were in danger. But it still didn’t look real. I still felt like I was gonna go back to school at some point, like every summer when we left on holidays. No matter how far we went, we always came back home, and we got back to normal.  
But this time we didn’t.

The first time it happened, we were sleeping in the car about two weeks after we left. Mom had driven the car on a small dirt road in the woods until we arrived in a meadow. She and dad were already sleeping but I wasn’t even tired. I was thinking about how we hadn't even taken our pet bird with us. We freed him the morning we left. I was lost in my bird thoughts when I saw something moving outside the car. I moved close to the window and narrowed my eyes to see the person? The animal? That was moving in the dark. It was a big dog, a black and white Border Collie who was digging through some bush. He hadn’t seen the car, and he looked pretty skinny and miserable. He wasn’t wearing a collar. I glanced at the driver and the passenger’s seat. Regular breathing, my dad was even snoring. In the moonlight, I could see the dark circles under his eyes. I couldn’t wake them up. They needed to sleep and it was just a dog, and it’s not like we could have adopted him anyway. But he looked so sad and tired… The doors were locked, of course. I just sat there staring at him, wishing I could pet his, ew, very dirty hair but man, he was still cute.

Then it happened.

I was staring at the dog about fifteen feet away from our car, imagining myself being next to the dog and giving him a bit of water out of my bottle when my vision went black. I don’t know if I actually passed out, but next thing I know, all I could feel was the wetness of grass and the cold of the night on my body. What? I was laying face down. I rolled on my back, hardly, and saw a black snout right above my head, then a tongue licking my nose. The dog… I sat up and saw our black Hyundai in the distance, the shadows of my parents in it. Okay. I’d fallen alseep. It was a dream. But it all felt real: the sound of the Border Collie panting on my left, the wind of March blowing in my sleeve, a branch of the bush hurting my back… I got up and walked towards the car, putting my hands on the window, looking at the seat I had been on a few moments earier. It was a weird dream. I needed to wake up, I felt too uncomfortable. So I did what seemed to be the most sensible thing: I closed my eyes and screamed.

Mom was the first one to react, she jumped out of her seat like she’d been stung by a bee. She saw me outside and she called my name as she was struggling to open the door. She ran and hugged me. When I saw the fear in her eyes, I was defenitely convinced this wasn’t dream.

“Honey what are you doing here? Are you okay? What...”

All I could do was cry in her arms. Dad finally got out and I explained inbetween sobs that I managed to come out of the car without opening the door. The dog was still watching us a few feet away. When I finished my story, my parents exhanged a look that absolutely terrified me.


	2. Chapter Two

They always tried to ‘stimulate’ whatever ability I was supposed to have. Asking me to solve a riddle. To try to guess what they were thinking. They didn’t believe I was going to die, because according to them it should have happened sooner. I should’ve had something special. At some point, they even thought I somehow didn’t have the illness, that I was immune. In the end, they weren’t scared because I did have something special. They were scared because I didn't, and that wasn’t supposed to exist.

I knew about the five colors and what they represented, but I appeared to belong to none of these categories. Teleportation. I can teleport. Mom and Dad, they told me it was okay, that there were probably other kids like me, that I didn’t have to worry, that there were upsides to everything, that teleporting was cool, that they loved me anyway, that I didn’t have to be afraid. I still felt bad. It was an accident. I didn’t intentionally make myself appear next to that dog, I just wanted to go near him in a normal, human way. What if I could never do it willingly? This time, I went somewhere I wanted to get, but what if it took me to some place I didn’t know? I had no idea of the extent of this ability, how far was I able to go? Suddenly I felt like a prisoner in my skin, frightened by this ‘power’ stronger than me.

The days passed and as we continued our super awesome road trip, I tried to teleport myself. Surprisingly, I managed to do it a few times, but a) I never landed exactly where I wanted to, b) It was never more than a few feet away, c) I always ended up face on the ground, d) To achieve that I needed to intensely concentrate and I often ended up with a killer migraine, and basically pain in my whole body. I couldn’t do it more than once a day because it was too exhausting. And I constantly had the fear to accidently end up somewhere I didn’t want to. I wondered if it was the same for the other kids, of the other colors. I also wondered if there were truly others like me, or if I was the only one. The feeling that we were on holiday and that I was going back to school soon was slowly fading away. I was damned. The miracle child, the immune, turned out to be even weirder than the usual weird freaks that were America’s children. I often wondered why it had to be this way. At least I wasn’t dead, but couldn’t I just be a Green or something, and end up in one of those camps where they were supposed to heal me? Mom and Dad told me they weren’t healing anyone there, but at least maybe I could know if there was anyone like me, and my parents would be safe. My parents... I’m glad they didn’t spoil me, I’m glad they always told me the truth. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have made it after the Fourth of July incident.

We were somewhere in Pennsylvania, I have no idea of where and I’ll always, always, hate myself for not knowing this piece of information. It was, as I said, on the Fourth of July. Amazing America’s birthday. Not so amazing these days. We were travelling on a highway, we’d heard a few fireworks during the day. Way less than the past years. No kidding. Even though there was rarely any other cars passing by, and that I was playing under a blanket with my Rubick’s cube (my parents got it for me when they were still trying to find out my color), they were still anxious about people finding out about me. There was this new trend of skip-tracers exchanging kids for money. It freaked all of us out. The economy was more than dropping and people did whatever they had to do for money. I guess. My parents stole food, at that point, because we only had a few savings left. What they stole was never really good, some leftovers from abandoned gas stations, but I wasn’t gonna complain. But this day, my dad decided otherwise. It was the Fourth of July, we were Americans, we hadn’t celebrated my Mom’s birthday because it was just after we left, there were fireworks, we were going to eat a proper meal for once. A real American meal. The car stopped on a KFC parking lot and I felt like my soul had been cleansed. It seemed to be still open. Dad swore to come back quick and went inside the restaurant. About two minutes had passed, I was still under my blanket, when my mom realized that “this dumbass-don’t repeat that Zoe” had forgotten to take his wallet with the few money we had left. I pulled my head over my blanket, and she told me to get back in there because we were out in the daylight and there were cars around. She would be back in a minute she said, and she went out. I only had my head out for a few seconds. But the man in the pick-up parked next to us didn't need more. Actually, I don't know if it's because I exposed myself or if he just saw a woman talking to a grey blanket. But whatever it was, after a few seconds I heard a huge crash sound and pieces of glass shattered on me.


End file.
